


Wishbone

by missingelderly



Series: murphamy week prompt fills [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Guns, M/M, Mild Gore, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4597419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missingelderly/pseuds/missingelderly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You saved my life, he says, I owe you everything.<br/>You don’t, I say, you don’t owe me squat, let’s just get going, let’s just get gone, but he’s relentless...</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wishbone

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been crazy busy lately, but I wanted to whip up a little something for murphamy week. The prompt was "apocalypse", so I took some liberties and made it a zombie one. There’s a few obvious Walking Dead references, but you don’t need to have seen the show for it to make sense. Thanks Abby for the last minute beta. Title and quote from a Richard Siken poem of the same name.

The sun was going down and there wasn’t any shelter in sight. It wouldn’t be the first time Bellamy had spent a night out in the open, but today had been brutal and he knew he needed rest. Real rest, not sleeping with one eye open, a hand curled around his pistol. Actual, honest to God, _sleep_. But he knew he wouldn’t get that. Each thud of his feet against the pavement sounded like a death knell. 

Nailed to a long defunct telephone pole was a sign that Bellamy knew like the back of his hand. Black letters that read “Shelter for all”, “Sanctuary for all”, and “TonDC”. Included was a map with two points: one that read “you are here” and another a few inches away labelled “TonDC”.

It was nearly identical to the map Bellamy had in his pocket, ripped from a similar sign many, many miles ago. The highway would lead him straight there. He was losing light fast and needed to set up camp someplace nearby, lest he get turned around (again).

Luck was on his side. He spied a dirt path trailing off the side of the road. It wasn’t much of a lead, just a loose line that had been stomped across a few times. He would have to chance it.

The trees were still blackened from a forest fire that happened years ago, probably even before the world went to shit. The forest was sparse, desolate. Yet young shoots of grass sprouted over the ashy landscape, and no leaves marred the first blush of sunset.

He hadn’t gone far when he saw the shack. It was new, that much was obvious. Anything as rickety as that would have been swept up by the fire, little more than kindling. The gaps between the grey wooden slats were nearly an inch wide in some places, but it had a roof and a door and that was all that mattered.

Bellamy heard the walkers before he saw them. A rattling hiss, fingernails scraping absently against the wood, the shuffling of uncoordinated feet. He readied his rifle, and kicked down the door. 

One walker was closer to the door than he predicted, and was buffeted back. The other one limped forward, eyes yellow and rotting, its mouth hanging open, revealing black gums and red spattered teeth.

It was too close. Bellamy reeled back to strike it with the nose of the gun, but it saw the gap and lunged forward. Snapping jaws were an inch away from his nose. The smell was putrid. He kicked and nearly vomited when his boot parted the walker’s flesh easily, and now he was stuck inside its rotting bowels. 

But the kick widened the gap between them just enough. Bellamy jammed the gun to its head and fired. The walker collapsed. He sucked in the clean air and bent bent down to dislodge his foot.

A clammy hand seized his arm. The second walker was still there.

He lost his balance, his foot still twisted inside the putrid slush. He held the walker back with one hand and nosed the gun into the soft flesh under its jaw, but his grip was weak, the position too awkward. He fired, missed. It still growled. He could feel his fingernails digging further and further into the walkers shoulder. 

A gunshot cracked and the corpse collapsed on top of him. Bellamy steeled his stomach. He scrambled back onto his feet, yanking his foot out of the walker’s abdomen with a squelch.

There was a man a few feet from him, a sawed-off shotgun in his hands, the barrel smoking. His eyes looked frightened, feral. He didn’t lower his gun.

“Thank you,” Bellamy said once he got his breath back.

The man didn’t say anything. His face was gaunt, and his hair long and dirty. He didn’t appear to have much, just a small knapsack and his unwavering shotgun.

“Is this your place?” Bellamy asked, gesturing toward the shack.

The man mumbled something, his finger slipping toward the trigger.

“What?”

“I said drop your weapon!” He barked.

He looked half-starved and only came up to Bellamy’s shoulder. It would be an easy fight. But Bellamy had learned his lesson about “easy” long ago. He dropped the gun and his backpack and put his hands up.

“Good,” the man said. His breath rattled through his throat. 

He stared at Bellamy as he approached. He clumsily patted him down, withdrawing two more guns and a knife in his belt.

“I don’t want any trouble,” Bellamy said.

He was thwacked with the butt of the shotgun. “Shut up! I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Not if the walkers do first.” The pain in his skull thudded with his pulse, but he didn’t lower his hands. “It’s getting dark and you’re not exactly being quiet.”

The man’s eyes flickered around the forest. Nothing but trees.

“So here’s what’s going to happen,” Bellamy continued. “You’re going to walk away and I’ll stay exactly like this. If I make a move, you can shoot me. But I won’t. Do we have a deal?”

Only the last dregs of sunlight remained in the sky. Bellamy wanted the man to hurry up and decide if he was going to leave or kill him. Time was slowly ticking away. 

The man dropped to the ground and swept Bellamy’s weapons into his bag. Then he waved his gun toward the door. Bellamy entered.

The door shut behind him. Orange rays of sunlight shone through the holes in the roof. There were a few wooden crates and nothing else except for the grass growing in the dirt floor. Bellamy sat in one corner and the man sat opposite him, his gun always trained on Bellamy’s face. 

Most bandits would have tried to kill him by now, or at least taken the supplies and ran, but Bellamy wasn’t about to give him any ideas. For now they were stuck together. Bellamy watched the light outside fade into blackness.

***

If anything, he was grateful to have somebody on watch while he dozed. It was a light sleep, punctuated with nightmares, but it was better than nothing. He had a watch, but he couldn’t quite make out the time in the semidarkness. His internal clock was usually pretty accurate though, and right now it was telling him there were several hours of night left.

He glanced over at his captor. The barrel of his gun had slipped and his eyes were fluttering shut. Once he saw Bellamy was awake, he resumed his tense position.

“What’s your name?” Bellamy asked.

“Shut up.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re the first person I’ve seen in days. Humor me.”

The man glared at him for a moment, but lowered his gun. “I’m not letting you go.”

“I know. I just want to talk.”

“So talk.”

Out of habit, Bellamy slipped into his three questions. “How many walkers have you killed?”

“Not enough.”

“How many people have you killed?”

The man swallowed. “Five.”

“Why?”

“Because they tried to kill me.” He popped his neck. “So did I pass your little test?”

_Yes_. “It’s not a test.”

“Then what about you? How many zombies have you killed?”

“Lost count.”

“People?”

He couldn’t answer. He cleared his throat. “You never told me your name, right?”

“Why should I?”

“It won’t kill you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Murphy.”

“Bellamy.”

“That’s a fucking ridiculous name.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

Around them, the cicadas sang. Murphy stared at him, then retrieved something from his backpack and scuttled toward Bellamy. “Hands behind your back.”

“Oh come on,” he groaned as he felt the zip ties digging into his wrist. Murphy bound his ankles together as well.

“I’m going to sleep, _Bellamy_. Yell if something happens. If you try anything, you’re dead.”

“You’re not a killer, Murphy.”

“You don’t know what I am.”

***

More hours slipped by in silence, interrupted with brief periods of sleep. Dawn would be coming soon. When Murphy awoke, Bellamy decided to call him out.

“You have no idea what you’re doing.”

Murphy flinched. “Says who?”

“Hate to disappoint you, but this isn’t the first time I’ve dealt with bandits. Normal thieves wouldn’t stick around this long. They would take what I have and bolt.”

“At first light, I’m out of—”

“And you saved me earlier. You could have let me get my face gnawed off and looted my corpse. You didn’t. Why?”

Murphy went quiet. Bellamy heard him shuffling around in the dark. “I didn’t want to be alone,” he whispered.

“No group?”

He shook his head. “It’s a long story. What about you?”

“Dead.”

“Zombies?”

“No. Just…gone.”

“Dead is dead. They could still be out there.”

“You don’t believe that do you?”

Murphy coughed. “If I untie you, can I have half your rations?”

“Only if you come with me.”

“Where?”

“TonDC. You’ve seen the signs for it, haven’t you?”

“I have. Sounds like a trap. You think your people are there?”

“I think something’s there.”

Murphy considered it for a moment. “I’m not sticking around. And if you try to kill me when I let you go, you’re gonna have another thing coming. Are we clear?”

Bellamy smirked. “Crystal.”

The birdsong came before the sun. Once the change in light became noticeable, Murphy cut his zip ties. He kept a gun trained on Bellamy as he replaced his gear. Bellamy didn’t tell him that he had a knife in his boot the whole time. 

They left the burnt forest behind. They were suspicious, anxious, ready for the other to slip up, but they were together. Just the nearness of another human being was enough.


End file.
